Surprisingly, Time Magazine recently devoted their cover study to reviewing a trend in academic theology. Weird. The essay was titled "Rethinking Heaven." It basically recounted how a team of theologians--with NT Wright as the captain--are writing about how Christian salvation is not a ticket out of this world to some other worldly place called heaven where we go when we die, but rather, that the ultimate future of the saved is one this planet, when heaven comes to earth. Christian believe that God will raise the dead and that they will live on this earth--albeit renewed and restored earth--and will there enjoy an embodied eternity with God. God is not abandoning his world, but intends to bring salvation to it.
The author, following the work of those he reported about, claimed that this view of heaven supposedly gives renewed support to causes of environmentalism and social justice. I guess the reasoning goes: "God is ultimately interested in this world, in its embodied concreteness, which means in its social and physical dimensions. He is not giving up on it, but instead, his plan is for salvation to reach into those dimensions too. [tha'ts the point it makes against the older, "fly away from this earth to a paradise in the clouds" view of heaven]. So, we the church, God's people and the agents through which God works out his salvation, should pursue those causes, because God pursues them too." Salvation includes creation and embodied life, so that should be the church's mission.
I hope I'm not caricaturing the logic of this kind of position. That's just how it seems to me to go, both in Rethinking Heaven, and in the works of those like NT Wright. But I just think that one's view of heaven is entirely not the point when it comes to the question of the church's mission. Who cares! One's view of heaven is not what really determines it. I'm fine saying that future salvation is embodied; that heaven will not be in the clouds but will be on earth. talking about the final state does not tell me what God wants his people to do now. This is my big frustration in all this talk. The fact is, God may want that end state, but he might have his own time and way for achieving that goal. How can we jump from "God ultimately wants it" to "We're supposed to pursue it now?" God has his own design and his own strategy, his own game plan and time table for when and how he wants to do things!
As far as I can tell in the NT, I see Paul, to take one example, very concerned with sharing the good news and tangibly and materially loving Christian communities, or those on the verge of becoming Christian. I don't see him pursuing social reform in the Roman empire, with the important exception that in his mind, the church was the sphere of social reform. But addressing problems of Roman governmental policy or the environment, or even trying to make this world a better place--NO! I don't see it. A more biblical view of heaven doesn't imply a missiology, let alone one that, at least in my view, isn't a strong theme in the Bible.
I guess what im upset with is that the missional conclusion that people claim to follow from the "rethinking of heaven' in fact doesn't follow (its invalid; not to mention deduction seems like a fishy method for generating a missiology). Just because the earth and embodied life is God's ultimate object, that doesn't mean that now is his time for that. You know, God doesn't necessarily want to use the church to everything he wants done. ...There will be, um, that thing called the return of Jesus.
If we want to think about the mission and calling of the church for this time, why not just start with that question? The Bible does have a lot to say about it--directly.
The author, following the work of those he reported about, claimed that this view of heaven supposedly gives renewed support to causes of environmentalism and social justice. I guess the reasoning goes: "God is ultimately interested in this world, in its embodied concreteness, which means in its social and physical dimensions. He is not giving up on it, but instead, his plan is for salvation to reach into those dimensions too. [tha'ts the point it makes against the older, "fly away from this earth to a paradise in the clouds" view of heaven]. So, we the church, God's people and the agents through which God works out his salvation, should pursue those causes, because God pursues them too." Salvation includes creation and embodied life, so that should be the church's mission.
I hope I'm not caricaturing the logic of this kind of position. That's just how it seems to me to go, both in Rethinking Heaven, and in the works of those like NT Wright. But I just think that one's view of heaven is entirely not the point when it comes to the question of the church's mission. Who cares! One's view of heaven is not what really determines it. I'm fine saying that future salvation is embodied; that heaven will not be in the clouds but will be on earth. talking about the final state does not tell me what God wants his people to do now. This is my big frustration in all this talk. The fact is, God may want that end state, but he might have his own time and way for achieving that goal. How can we jump from "God ultimately wants it" to "We're supposed to pursue it now?" God has his own design and his own strategy, his own game plan and time table for when and how he wants to do things!
As far as I can tell in the NT, I see Paul, to take one example, very concerned with sharing the good news and tangibly and materially loving Christian communities, or those on the verge of becoming Christian. I don't see him pursuing social reform in the Roman empire, with the important exception that in his mind, the church was the sphere of social reform. But addressing problems of Roman governmental policy or the environment, or even trying to make this world a better place--NO! I don't see it. A more biblical view of heaven doesn't imply a missiology, let alone one that, at least in my view, isn't a strong theme in the Bible.
I guess what im upset with is that the missional conclusion that people claim to follow from the "rethinking of heaven' in fact doesn't follow (its invalid; not to mention deduction seems like a fishy method for generating a missiology). Just because the earth and embodied life is God's ultimate object, that doesn't mean that now is his time for that. You know, God doesn't necessarily want to use the church to everything he wants done. ...There will be, um, that thing called the return of Jesus.
If we want to think about the mission and calling of the church for this time, why not just start with that question? The Bible does have a lot to say about it--directly.
Nikolaus, good post.
ReplyDeleteI am basically sympathetic to your critique -- but I think that if you had people to give you flak, they would give it to you at (at least) two points in your argument:
1) the call to replicate Paul's missionary practices (in this case, what he left out) is one that would need massive justification. While this sort of move is instinctual to certain tracts of N. American Christianity, on the whole, Catholics and mainstream Protestants have a more subtle view of history. We are not seeking to be the NT church right now. We are a church that has experienced 2000 years of history, seeking to "think with" the NT.
2) you fill find that most "in the guild" believe that the NT (and even Paul; cf Longenecker's recent book) renders a far more holistic vision of mission than Dr. Chris and you. It's not just a deduction from the all-encompassing scope of God's redemptive purposes.
3) relatedly, there may be more to this "deduction" than you suppose; a lot of it has to do with just how much proleptic participation in the future eschatological realities we grant to the present church. God's mission is about restoring humanity and creation in a big holistic way, right? Jesus somehow fulfills this destiny by his resurrection -- "ahead of the times." And the church announces this promissory reality...but it also experiences it to some degree (isn't this everywhere in the NT? baptized into Christ, raised with him, dead to sin etc?). And it's that last fact that gives impetus to the missiological proposals you highlight, because presumably the church's partial present experience of the final future restoration impacts all dimensions of its life (social, environmental, etc). Does that follow? It's all about how we parse out the already-not yet.
You might like this post I wrote some years ago. I doubt i agree with much in it these days:
http://kaleidobible.blogspot.com/2010/06/outsiders-and-insiders-old-testament.html